The year is 2554. Humans have long since ventured out into space in order to colonize more planets, they call their territory the Galactic Terran Coalition (GTC). Somewhere deep within that territory, on a planet called Centauri, a young Rider Whitlock is starting at the ample bosom of his first and only girlfriend of 5 years. Not out of excitement or lust, but out of boredom, simply because there weren’t any other interesting things to concentrate on during another dragging lecture from Mr. Gerson…

Ryder mumbled to himself:

“Hmmmm… Can’t wait for our anniversary next month…”

“Ryder Whitlock! Are my lessons that uninteresting to you?!”

“Do you want my honest opinion Ralph? Why would I want to learn about biohacking? Installing one of those flux-guides would be close to impossible for Sapiens like us…”

Only I’m allowed to call Mr. Gerson by his first name. I won a bet that I would be able to win first-place in our class for the summer-exams.

“Because it will be on the exam, that’s why! Now pay attention!”

Even if he’s acting tsundere like that, me and Mr. Gerson get along just fine, I’m one of the only students that actively participates during his lessons after all...

I suddenly get elbow-poked by Fraldy, my best friend.

“What do you want?”

“Hey Ry, what quality would you improve if you ever get a flux-guide installed?”

“What a dumb question, it’s not like we would ever get our hands on one of those… But I would definitely have to improve my muscle density.”

“I know right! I heard that people with a grade A muscle density could crumple up one of those gauss-tanks as if it were made out of paper!”

“That would be sick. Although I might be better off improving my bone-density instead. You know, so I won’t break anything next time you push me off my hoverboard.”

“Oh come on, I already apologized for that! Didn’t I bake you some cookies? The bff-rules dictate that you have to forgive the other person after the baking of the offering cookies!”

“Sure, but I feel like you have invoked that rule more times than I have for some reason...”

We both start laughing, but get interrupted when Alexie, my girlfriend, suddenly nudges me.

“Why even dream about biohacking? Only those Lunarians can afford those flux-guide thingies, not to mention how heavily regulated they are.”

Before I get the opportunity to respond, Fraldy joins in on our conversation:

“Lunarians? Those weirdos?”

I remember learning about Lunarians during one of Mr. Gerson’s lessons. Apparently they evolved from Sapiens when they had to adapt to the moon’s environment using genetic manipulation or something. *SIGH* All that matters now though, is that they rule over us Sapiens like royalty…

Alexie also heard some rumors about them it seems:

“Yeah, I heard those freaks have to share their wives and husbands with the rest of their family. Gross…”

Fraldy interjects again:

“I actually wouldn’t mind being shared by a family of beautiful Lunarian woman.”

I can’t help but chuckle at Fraldy’s ridiculousness, but I guess Lunarians are often regarded as rather beautiful…

My thoughts get interrupted by an elbow poke to my ribs from Alexie. She comes a bit closer and whispers in my ear:

“Why are you still hanging out with him, I thought we already talked about this.”

*SIGH*  “I know babe…”

Alexie wants me to distance myself from Fraldy, she calls him a bad influence… Well, I can’t really deny that, he’s the person who introduced me to alcohol, and subsequently turned into my alcohol-dealer too… But I’ve known him since middle school, so what if we sometimes like to drink togheter? Just because the planet-law says it’s illegal doesn’t mean it’s evil…

I guess Alexie is usually right though. She helped me get into this class for gifted students after all, even gave me ‘rewards’ whenever I got good grades…

Before I could continue daydreaming about those ‘rewards’ the door to the classroom suddenly slams open, revealing a pale, tall and muscular dude with two small antennas on his forehead.

Wait… Is that a Lunarian? What is he doing here?

Luckily, Mr. Gerson quickly starts explaining the situation to us:

“O-Oh, good afternoon, you must be Lucien Larker right? From the dignified Larker estate? I-I wasn’t expecting you to be here already. My apologies for not welcoming you or explaining the situation to the other students.

Why is Ralph being so nice all of the sudden?

“No problem teach, just continue your explanation.”

“R-Right, of course, *AHEM* students, this is Lucien Larker, from the dignified Larker estate. He will be joining us for half a year, after which, he’ll continue his studies at the military academy. W-Why don’t you introduce yourself Lucien?”

“Why should I? You just introduced me… *SIGH* Whatever, I’m Lucien, I’ll be joining you mud-crawlers for half a year before going to the academy. I’m only doing this because of a request from my old man. He said I should learn to ‘mingle’ with the plebeians that I’ll eventually rule over or whatever… That’s it!”

He arrogantly, yet with a trace of elegance, walks towards one of the back rows and takes a seat.

What a real asshole… Scary, that’s almost exactly how I imagined a Lunarian to be…

A kind of awkward air fills the room, nobody is quite sure how to react. Nonetheless, Mr. Gerson tries to continue his lecture:

“O-Okay, great introduction Lucien, let’s continue. *AHEM* Can any of you tell me why the Galactic Terran Coalition (GTC) allied itself with the Artificial Life Federation or ALF? Even though doing so would earn them the wrath of the Luciel Empire?”

To my surprise, the Lunarian raises his hand. I didn’t think he would actually take this class seriously, don’t Lunarians just upload the entire curriculum directly to their brain chip?... God that sounds nice, too bad you can buy a small planet with the money you need to obtain one of those brain chips…

 “What a dumb question, of course it’s because of how righteous and benevolent the GTC is!”

“Correct! That’s exactly how the textbook explained it!”

Oh, looks like he just wanted to brag about his knowledge. I did notice a downside about uploading the entire curriculum to your brain-chip though… It seems you’ll easily fall for propaganda…

 Let’s embarrass this arrogant prick for a bit:

“Wow, you really believe in those fairytales? What a poor boy, I thought you would’ve grown out of those by now.”

“Hmpf! You’re just jealous that I knew the right answer and you didn’t, typical mud-crawler. If you know of a better answer, please enlighten me.”

“Fine, *AHEM* the GTC allied itself with ALF for 2 reasons. The first reason being technological advancement, humanity lacked dense energy sources and machines with powerful arithmetic capabilities. Both of those could be provided by ALF, a collection of conscious robots that have almost infinite computing power. The second reason was to help overthrow the Luciel Empire, which they were already at war with at the time.”

Everybody was stunned for a moment, although it was logical, I did just commit heresy…

I quickly continued so nobody would think too long about the heresy part:

“But of course, you already knew all that, right Lucien? With you superior intellect and whatnot.”

Lucien grits his teeth:

“R-Right… Of course I did…”

It kind of feels good to put him down, I just hope this won’t turn into a bigger issue later on….

But when I look back at Fraldy and my girlfriend who are trying desperately to hold back their laughter, I realize it was all worth it.

Niku20

Alright, if you have made it to the end of this first chapter, thank you! Maybe you still have a few questions about the world though, or maybe you don't. Either way, instead of a boring glossary that nobody will read, I'll instead explain some of the space mumbo-jumbo in an author note at the end of each chapter :). I'll be doing this since explaining everything inside the novel would be rather boring and since it's written from Ryder's perspective it wouldn't make much sense to explain everything. Without further ado:

Territories: There are 4 different 'Empires' that rule over the known galaxy: the 'Galactic Terran Coalition' abbreviated as GTC which consists of mostly humanoids. Then there is their ally the 'Artificial Life Federation' which consists of artificial intelligence and androids that have obtained consciousness. The empire with the most planets under it's rule would be the ever-expanding 'Luciel Empire' ruled by an alien race that hasn't been mentioned in the story so far. The 'Greater Planetary Union' is the final empire, it's made up out of a bunch of different alien races. 

Brain-chip: A microchip implanted into someones skull that let's them store and upload a lot of data to their brain, it can control certain devices from a distance and it can also be used to make calls to other people that have brain-chips.

Flux-guide: Used to alter the genes of humanoids, it can unlock the potential of so called 'dormant sub-genes' which grant their user incredible strength, agility or endurance by upgrading certain 'qualities' like muscle or bone density. They can also 'awaken' genes granting the user 'special powers'. Further explanations about how they work and are implanted will be given later in the story. 

Mud-crawler: Derogatory term for Sapien.